Genocide, Islam and Weaponized Empathy

As some of my readers know, I am part Armenian by ancestry. It used to be a thing that didn’t enter into my daily thought process, for I am also partially of English descent and am fully American, in culture, language and appearance. Armenians can generally tell that I am of Armenian ancestry, but few others can. But as militant Islam made its presence felt, increasingly in recent years, that identity has resurfaced because of the connection my own family has to the affair.

Then I saw this photo of a drowned Syrian boy:

This photo was intended to provoke a reaction, and it did.

Leftists would have you believe that us on the Right have no empathy. We wish to deny the endless migrations away from crisis areas in the Islamic world and that, they would tell us, is incompatible with human rights, dignity, empathy and so on.

My grandfather told me stories of Armenia (Armenians, then, lived throughout Anatolia), which he remembered only dimly. Mostly, he remembered it through the stories told in the Armenian exile community.

Entire villages were erased, all the inhabitants slaughtered, the buildings burnt to the ground, the movable wealth stolen and melted down. Nothing of them remained. In the days before the genocide, two dialects of the Armenian language existed, colloquially referred to as the Western, or Anatolian, dialect and the Eastern dialect. The Western dialect has mostly gone extinct, spoken only by a few elders in the diaspora. My grandfather could speak it, but my mother knew only a few words. Only the Eastern dialect survives. Half of Armenia ceased to exist.

These were hardy Christians who had survived on the edge of the Byzantine and Islamic worlds for centuries. They had fought alongside Greeks and Crusaders. They were among the earliest — perhaps the very first — nations to convert to Christianity. They spoke an ancient language, a variant of the Indo-European language set that appears distantly related to Greek, and unrelated to any other.

Islam nearly erased them.

Now that Christians in the Middle-East are approaching extinction, the new target is the insufficiently Muslim. The Yazidis with their syncretic half-Muslim religion, or the Kurds who elevate their own nationalism over their religion (a rarity in the Muslim world).

I feel for them. I really do. In fact, I cannot tell you how much it pains me to see these things. On my grandfather’s knee, I heard the stories of Armenian survivors. In particular, one woman stands out. She was a child when the Turks came for her family, but she was comely and pretty. Her parents and brothers were killed and she was sold as a slave for a wealthy Turk’s harem. Her story of survival and escape was terrifying to me as a child, and it instilled a sense of resolve where Islam was concerned that has not abated to this day.

Can you imagine this? Seeing your family slaughtered, and only surviving to be used as a sex slave by those who did the deed? Blacks in America lecture me about my White privilege, saying that their ancestors were slaves. Mine were slaves much more recently than theirs. Mine were slaughtered wholesale.

But back to the central point, why, then, if America sheltered my family, must the West turn back the refugees of Syria, of Somalia, of Libya?

Because they bring the source of infection with them. Armenians had managed, through some strength I sometimes find difficult to fully grasp, to hang on to their European culture and Christian religion through millenia of conflict with Islam. They had stubbornly resisted assimilation into Islam and its ideals. These refugees, for all that my heart yearns to give them sanctuary and a place to escape to, nonetheless carry Islam with them.

There are good Muslims in the world, and I want to make this clear. My own family lived only because an Ottoman official warned my great-grandfather that genocide was coming. This man, whose name I cannot remember — something that genuinely pains me, for my grandfather died when I was young and his stories are almost dream-like to me, now — paid for the ticket to America for my family, for English language lessons, and everything else needed to escape before it was too late.

I hope that I will meet this good and righteous man in the life to come. I hope God saw fit to accept him into His kingdom.

But Islam nonetheless is a contagion, even if some maintain a stubborn moral immunity to the infection. Where Islam goes, this violence will follow. You will never save all the little boys, you will never stop the slaughter. All you will do is bring it to your own shores.

And if there is something I know for certain, it is that my ancestors did not escape Islam only to see their descendants fight it again, once more in their own homes.

There were tears in my grandfather’s eyes, at times, as he recounted the things he knew. And I know what his reaction would be to this boy’s death. He would feel empathy and sadness, far more acutely than the moral busybodies of Progressive Leftism. But then he would turn off the TV and tell me the truth: that we could not help them without also dooming ourselves to the same.

So, Leftists, take your Weaponized Empathy elsewhere. We understand that the world is full of terrible things, of children dying, of women enslaved. But we have to find our resolve and protect our own.

For if we do not, it could be my son laying on that distant beach, and that I will not allow.

Your comment is mostly incoherent, in a fashion that is highly reminiscent of a person overwhelmed by emotion.

So I am going to state my 10 cents and hope that my response is relevant to what you said.

On a national, international, historical, and sociological scale, peaceful people are irrelevant. They have not the slightest impact on how a course of events plays out, either immediately or in the end. While morally we must give them all the aid we can, this morality is opposed by the plain and simple, purely mechanical fact that these people are “worthless”. As a group measured to the aforementioned scales, they will not lift a single finger to oppose the evils that afflict them. Events like Martin Luther King, Jr’s marches are an exceedingly rare exception, not the rule. The Ottoman official mentioned in this article was a single man, not a group, and the group dynamics forced him to do his work in secret.

The course of events is decided by the bloodthirsty, zealous minority that is willing and able to slaughter, rape, and pillage their way across the face of the earth in pursuit of their goals. As the old saying goes, “The only thing necessary for evil to flourish is for good to stand by and do nothing.”

The grand-scale problem that confronts civilized people in situations like these is not, “What do we do?” There’s only one thing to do-fight for your survival with fire, blood and steel. A key tenet of Islam is that all who do not follow “The True Will of Allah” are not just hellbound, but hellspawn-deliberate, intentional minions of Shaitan/Shaytan/Iblis. Such a people will never negotiate with “others”, except as another means of destroying us. This ideology was most prominently espoused in recent times by Osama bin-Laden, and supported by other prominent clerics and Islamic groups, such as Ayatollah Khamenei;

Thus, with all avenues of peaceful cooperation shut down before they can even begin, the proper question for us to answer is, “How do we destroy these zealots in the most efficient manner possible?”

“The American Way” is not to stand by and let evil flourish in the name of tolerance. It is to give each and every person the opportunity to prove themselves good and just people, deserving of respect. We are not, and never should be, obligated to accommodate people who use that mercy as an opportunity to kill us.

For those Christians who still live in America, it is wise to remember the words of Mark 12:17-“Give unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give unto God what belongs to God”. God demands that we forgive our enemies infinitely; “Love thy neighbor as thyself”. “Caesar” demands that we step up and defend our country against those who would kill us out of religious hatred, to the fullest of our capacity.

I cannot, at this time, tell you what the perfect balance of peace and war is. But there is a balance, and it is our obligation to find it. Right now, I feel safe in claiming we have far too much mercy and not nearly enough war.

If we do not step up and take this fight to our neighbors across the way-the Islamic killers running around the middle east-they will come to us. The only functional choice left to us is whether to wage war in our homeland or theirs.

I’m not sure that your statement that “peaceful people are irrelevant” is accurate. Erica Chenoweth’s research makes a strong case that nonviolent resistance as a tactic can be very effective in the right circumstances. It’s clear that nonviolent resistance is not effective against militant Islamic movements, but I’d predict that as those movements solidify into administrative rather than military entities, they will become more susceptible to civil resistance. State apparatus exposes everybody to the same attacks, and IS might not be so good at defending themselves in that situation.

Also: I don’t think Mark 12:17 means what you think it does, but that’s a different discussion!

I think we have a miscommunication over the word, “Peaceful”. I have skimmed Ms. Chenoweth’s book, “Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict”, and one of the things I noticed is that what she, and apparently you, call “peaceful” is what I call “nonviolent”. This sort of activity is in direct opposition to the oppression in question, so while they may not be actively shedding blood, they are definitely provoking a conflict of sorts; not the thing that comes to my mind when I think of the word, “peaceful”.

I suppose the word can still be used to describe the aspect concerning “without violence/without a war”, but that wraps back around to my preference to use the term “nonviolent” instead. Maybe it’s just a personal thing on my part.

Concerning the Mark 12:17 passage, keep in mind that a great deal of Jesus’ troubles were caused by rabble-rousers who wanted to violently fight the Romans (i.e., the Nazareans, a group of which Jesus was never a member). Jesus’ line about Caesar/God was in response to the Pharisees trying to trick him into speaking out against paying taxes, which would have constituted rebellion against Rome. My interpretation is that Jesus was telling the Pharisees (and the Jews) “Obey/support the laws and general practices of Rome, except where it directly conflicts with the law of God”.

Yes, I think we were speaking at cross-purposes around “peaceful”, and I take your point. But I would dispute that “The course of events is decided by the bloodthirsty, zealous minority,” which is a very limited view of history; because of course the course of events is *not only* decided by that minority.

Re: Mark 12:17. We were taught – and I tend to agree – that Jesus was expressing a more revolutionary sentiment. In a Christian framework, all belongs to God and nothing belongs to man, not even to Caesar. Thus Jesus was speaking in code, as it were – making a defensible statement as per your interpretation, which the Pharisees could not use to condemn him – but an extremely seditious statement when understood in that political context by his own followers.

Johnathan
on September 5, 2015 at 5:01 pm

I never intended to imply that *only* the violent decide history. What I meant to say was that in any point of time where a violent and a nonviolent group exist alongside each other, the violent will inevitably defeat the non-violent. The only way a non-violent group can win this battle is to outlast the violent group, which is inevitably an extremely costly, bloody prospect. The current modern-day state of affairs with Muslims slaughtering Christians across the Middle East is an excellent demonstration of this principle.

I agree with everything you’ve said concerning the Mark 12:17 so far, except that I think we’re at cross-purposes with the practical implications of what Jesus was saying. My belief was that Jesus was telling the Jews that Rome, as the primary civilization of the time, should be actively supported because it, in many ways, did God’s will. The scientific and (in some cases) political accomplishments of Rome were an embodiment of God’s demand that we strive to improve the lives and well-being of both ourselves and others, and they (and other things) should not be cast aside in the heat of hatred. In other words, recognize that a fair bit of the Roman nation was in accordance with God’s will, and to uphold God’s will on the occasions when the Roman nation diverged away from God.

In summary, all of it belongs to God, but much of what existed at the time was in accordance with God’s law, so pick your targets with more care and avoid sedition.

“I’m not sure that your statement that “peaceful people are irrelevant” is accurate. ”

It is accurate in one environment, ….an imperial environment. This is why political violence from Muslims is almost always done by one or another form of Caliphate Revivalist. Caliphate Revivalists are the ones demanding that interpretations of Islam that justify Muslim imperialism. Whether they are Salafists trying to revive the Caliphate of “the 5 righteous Caliphs”, or Khomeinists, trying to revive the domination of the Shia Caliphate of the Fatimid Dynasty, these groups are who are propagating scriptural literalism and religious intolerance within Islam once again.

It is the imperial State that is a Caliphate which benefits from scriptural literalism, not *any* human’s relationship to god. It is the imperial State that benefits from religious intolerance, not our relationship with god. To miss this unfocuses our attention from our true enemy, the agrarian culture imperial State, now assailing the world-wide industrial culture of industrial society. It matters little whether the imperial State is the Muslim Caliphate, or the Christian Roman Empire of Constantinople the Caliphate was modeled on, or the recently interred “socialist camp” of communism.

Either would be an intolerant, violent destroyer of the freedoms of action needed for the world-wide industrial networks high levels of productivity that support 6 of the 7 billion humans on this planet.

The “agrarian culture” bit refers to an ideology that believes an economic system with a maximum of agricultural production and a minimum of industrialization/scientific implementation is the best method to insure national prosperity and integrity. Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, was a primary supporter of this in American history. The slave-owning plantational American South was a wide-scale example of what this looks like in practice, although slavery is not an integral part of the “agrarian culture”.

I’m a little more fuzzy on the “imperial state” bit, so I can’t really give you much there.

merkur
on September 5, 2015 at 5:35 pm

Well that seems strange, since European communism was quite focused on industrial progress, and the current Iranian economy is far from agrarian. Hopefully Tom can shed some light on what he means!

Johnathan
on September 5, 2015 at 5:46 pm

European communism wasn’t industrialized because the communist leaders wanted them to be-it was industrialized because all of the industrialization was already finished by the time they took power. Going back to the agricultural standard they wanted would have required dismantling all of that, and that would have sparked a rebellion of colossal proportions. So they made do by attempting to control all of it, forcing people to do various manufacturing/farming jobs.

A similar thing happened in Iran, although it’s not as obvious because the current leadership only really took power in the 1980’s, if I recall correctly.

The Kid
on September 7, 2015 at 3:47 am

Very insightful Tom. Non-violent groups that come up against violent fanatics tend to be exterminated or driven out.

Robin
on September 7, 2015 at 3:32 pm

@Johnathan – I think you misunderstand Jefferson. Jefferson’s agrarianism was based on his view that a nation of self-reliant, armed small-holders (not “slave-owning plantations”) would be far less likely to succumb to the blandishments of demagogues and despots to increase the power of the State over the individual. If you’re providing your own food versus working for someone else, you’re in a better position to tell the State’s minions to go trundle their scooter somewhere else. Industrialization, obviously, undermines the power of the individual to resist (I submit it is not a coincidence that Hamilton was a proponent of industrialization).

Further, Jefferson was no anti-scientist, having extensive horticultural collections and a vast library of the latest scientific materials which became the foundation for the Library of Congress.

Non-violent resistance didn’t work for Gandhi in South Africa, and when he was asked for advice by the Jews of Germany, he didn’t have any – because he knew that non-violent resistance works best against moderately religious Western European Protestants.

I don’t recall that the Spanish fascists became any more amenable to “civil resistance” over the decades, nor do I recall the same of the dictatorships of Latin America and Africa. I think it is incurable optimism to believe any different of the crazed Caliphate.

“I’m not sure that your statement that “peaceful people are irrelevant” is accurate.”
Simple.
Did the peaceful Germans stop Hitler?
Did the peaceful Jews?
Did the peaceful Russians stop Stalin?
History is replete with the “peaceful” being killed by the non-peaceful.
Unless both sides are peaceful, then peaceful people are irrelevant.

The Roman Empire, the Caliphate, the Chinese Empire, the Russian Empire, the Soviet Extension of the Russian Empire, the Moghul Empire, etc. These are all agrarian cultures, because they have adapted to the environment of the agricultural revolution using a hierarchical State, and then proceeded to enhance their own hierarchies’ wealth by conquering other groups, and channeling as much of their wealth to the imperial center capital as is possible.

The justifications for this are things like, “we’re protecting them from the barbarians”, and “we’re creating peace under our united rule”. In fact, when empires break down usually coincides with people learning that “barbarians” tax them less heavily than a corrupt imperial hierarchy. Those same imperial hierarchies have little tolerance for the freedoms of action needed to allow the creative networks of industrial society to flourish. Whether or not they call themselves empires, the states that allowed industrial freedoms got rid of their imperial burdens within 200 years of those freedoms becoming evident. Some were even faster.

Thus, once the Soviets stopped pointing guns at the heads of anyone not in line with their “planners” demands, the Soviet Empire crumbled. Some portions of it have resisted it being reconstituted, and moved to lift their productivity by allowing the freedoms of action needed to take part in the world-wide networks of industrial society. The emerging Russian State has, since the collapse, never advanced beyond the oil-based rentier economy we see in Saudi Arabia, another agrarian culture, artificially buying the physical epiphenomena of industrialization with oil money. This, in turn, means we can see the Russian State begining violent attempts to reconstitute the old Russian Empire, before the oil runs out.

By definition all cultures were “agrarian” before the industrial revolution; and although you describe accurately (if broadly) how empires work, it takes no account of the colossal differences between (say) the Umayyad Caliphate and the British Empire.

“The states that allowed industrial freedoms got rid of their imperial burdens within 200 years of those freedoms becoming evident” offers no causal analysis. You could equally well say that it was the imperial system that made the industrial revolution possible.

Short version: I don’t understand what argument you’re trying to make in your original post. I recognise that’s entirely my problem, but can you simplify it somehow?

As long as ‘war’ refers to ‘pulling the rug out from under their feet’ and not the egomanic joy of destroying swathes of civilisations with the best weaponry that money can create or by the swindling armaments from richer countries via the use of empathetic chicanery.

Well if you don’t understand what I am saying then your input is one-sided, you are just arguing your case because you think that you are right and in your mind you are, in my mind you are not.

gray man
on September 8, 2015 at 4:23 am

It is not a matter of “understanding” what you are saying.
I understand perfectly what you are saying.
The problem is that what you are saying is wrong.
There is no such thing as “limited” war if you want to win.
There is only total war. Or the threat of total war.
And in total war, civilians get killed.
As they should by the way.
That way they are sharing the repercussions of the decisions they made that led to war.
In the Civil War, Lincoln, and Sherman understood that.
In WWII both the AXIS, and ALLIED military understood that.
In all wars the military understands that.
I understand that because I have spent 20+ years in the military, in tier one units.
Military people understand that, apparently civilians do not.
Probably because civilians somehow think they do not have to share the responsibility of their actions.
I dare say, you do not.

Awabakal
on September 8, 2015 at 7:02 am

You make a lot of assumptions chap. 20 years military? Stonewall.
You want me to argue the benefits of war? Not going to. The back and forward advantages and disadvantages are too numerous. We would be here forever.
However, if you understood what I said we could have a different discussion … unless you just like war the way it is and your lust is to kill and conquer.

gray man
on September 8, 2015 at 1:17 pm

Who’s arguing the “benefits “of war … chap?
But only a fool does not realize that sometimes war is necessary, and sometimes you certainly benefit from it.
I understand exactly what you are saying, and I am correcting where you are wrong.
So live with it … chap.

The Kid
on September 10, 2015 at 4:51 am

Yes, we had to destroy vast swathes of civilization to win WWiII which was, in large part, a contest between Hitler and Stalin to see who could murder the most Russians.

War is not a good thing; but there are times when it is the only just alternative. Proportional response is a construct of those who are squeamish, but are not really averse to using force, as long as they can salve their conscience with their notion of fighting “fairly.”

The problem is that you just wind up killing more people and destroying more civilization than if you just fight the war and get it over and done.

gray man
on September 10, 2015 at 1:19 pm

Kid,
awabacal lives in a utopian fantasy world.
A “modern progressive education” will do that to people.

The Kid
on September 10, 2015 at 8:44 pm

Yes, a progressive education will do that to people. They become passive sheep who will permit any and all atrocities to occur because they suffer from the mass delusion that active resistance somehow is a matter of “sinking to their level.”

This works very well for the ones who commit atrocities. The only thing better than a dad opponent is one that volunteers to be slaughtered.

They also consider those who don’t agree with them to either lack intelligence or to be suffering from mental illness. Unfortunately for such logic, such a belief is in itself a sign of mental illness.

The Kid
on September 8, 2015 at 7:03 am

I don’t know, Awakbakal. Destroying large swathes of civilization seemed to work very well for both Al-Qaeda and Daesh. Nothing like stoning people in the streets and killing them for not following your sect, and destroying their history to demoralize a people and bring them to heel.

The tactics of Al Quaeda and Daesh are not the subject though. Destabilising them and pulling the rug out from underneath them would have had different consequences to what is now happening in Syria for example and more than likely will happen on a wider scale with hostile Western Allies against the fabricated hostility of countries that are not Western Allies.
One thing I will put forward – America now has its nose out of joint that Russia has taken a stranglehold of the situation in Syria. Where will America and its cohorts be after Russian intervention in Syria. All those Halliburton Syrian plans are now out the window.

The Kid
on September 8, 2015 at 7:36 am

Halliburton entered the field as the pre-screened contractor selected by President Clinton for “emergency operation.” It seems their main activity was as a US government contractor restoring damaged oil fields and fighting oil field fires. There are only a few specialty firms in the world that do that sort of work.

I don’t think that anyone other than a few confused people in the Executive Branch particularly care that Russia is busy in Syria – if the Russians are fighting Daesh, the rest of us can stay home and let them fight. The Russian military is not known for being concerned with niceties such as the collateral damage or killing civilians; given that, they are far more likely to win than would the US and the Western European nations.

The tactics of Al-Qaeda and Daesh are relevant as those particular civilization destroying tactics have led to their great success. There tactics are *exactly* the same as the original ignorant Najdi Wahhabi bedouin who swept down on the civilized people of Taif, Medina, Mecca, Karbala, etc. Obviously the worked as the Wahhabiyya now rule the Arabian Peninsula and spread their poison worldwide under the noses of a tolerant and unaware West.

gray man
on September 8, 2015 at 1:22 pm

Kid, he does not seem to understand that “destroying large swathes of civilization” is what we had to do to win WWII.

merkur
on September 5, 2015 at 10:07 am

Do you believe that the international community – or at least key actors within it – should have done more to stop the Armenian genocide?

They couldn’t have. Like the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide was perpetrated during a World War. Nobody could *get* to Turkey to stop it, even if they wanted to.

If there was a sin on the part of the International community, it was in trying to bury what happened. Even today, Turkey does not acknowledge it. You can give the Germans credit, at least, for recognizing the wrong. Turkey was then allowed to keep the land that they had “cleansed” in the treaties following the war. That, also, was travesty.

If they could not do more, then what they “should” have done is irrelevant.

That being said, if it’s within your power to stop genocide, that would probably be a good idea. I fail to see what that has to do with the central thesis of Western countries taking in Islamic refugees, however.

Because we can stop the genocide of non-muslims and not good enough Muslims and prevent mass refugee invasion.

merkur
on September 5, 2015 at 4:01 pm

I’m trying to work out what the moral basis for your position is. I was confused because you praised the Ottoman official for helping your family members, but the rest of your argument suggested to me that, if you had been in his position, you would not have done the same. I don’t think that’s true – I think you would have tried to help them – but then the rest of your argument backs away from that. I subscribe strongly to the injunctions laid out in Luke 10:29-37 and Matthew 25:31-46, and you don’t have to be a Christian to believe that the Golden Rule is not negated by our personal fears.

Easy. I admire Oskar Schindler, for saving the lives of many Jews from genocide, like the Ottoman official did for my own family. Schindler was a member of the Nazi party. My support and admiration for Schindler does not mean I would like to allow 100k+ Nazis (whatever their refugee status might be) to immigrate to my country.

Now, the comparison of Islam to Nazism may be unfair to some degree, but both ideologies pushed genocide, and, indeed, Hitler expressed a degree of inspiration for his own genocide based on the fact that the Ottomans got away with it. The point, however, remains. Were the situation reversed, and I was in a position of power to help Muslim refugees escape a hostile place, and go to a Muslim country that was friendly and welcoming to them, of course I would do it. Indeed, I would encourage them to do so.

That’s a far cry from wanting hundreds of thousands (maybe even millions) of Muslim immigrants to come en masse to the West. If you cannot see the difference, I can’t help you.

merkur
on September 5, 2015 at 5:30 pm

“Islam” doesn’t push genocide, Islamic militant movements are pushing genocide. What IS is doing today to minority groups can be labelled genocide in exactly the same way that what the Ottoman Empire did to the Armenians is labelled genocide. However the “Ottoman Empire” wasn’t an Islamic militant movement – as I understand it, the Young Turks generally worked to remove Islam as a basis of state power, instead looking towards the European nationalist model?

There is a moral and legal obligation to respond, particularly as we bear some of the responsibility for the current situation in both Syria and Afghanistan. I’m not sure I agree about military intervention as per some of the commentators here, but the humanitarian case seems unarguable. I agree that the impact of large-scale refugee acceptance is extremely problematic, but if managed effectively as a temporary measure as part of a broader policy to stabilise these regions, it’s not an outlandish scheme.

Per your views, I’m not sure why you think Muslims in particular pose problems. I’m quite sure that Syrian Christians – who also need refugee right now – would be equally problematic culturally from your perspective, no?

You, merkur, have little to no understanding of the history of Islam, or its texts (especially the Hadith). There was a Pew study (hardly a right wing outfit) which indicated double-digit support for terrorism against civilian targets among most major countries in the Muslim world. In some places, like Gaza, active support for terrorism was over 60%. Even in moderate Muslim countries it was usually over 10%.

Now, apply that to your incoming migrants. You are adding tens of thousands who support terrorism to your country. Bad idea.

But more than that, if anyone has a priority moral obligation to help the Muslim refugees, it is OTHER MUSLIMS. Why doesn’t Turkey take them, or Morocco, or Egypt? No, only the West must take them, according to the Left. That is a fallacy, and you know it.

If you cannot understand this, then we are done with this debate. There would be no point in wasting further time with you.

merkur
on September 5, 2015 at 6:39 pm

Well, I have some little understanding of Islam, having studied the history of it for a year at college, worked in various majority-Muslim countries for a few years, and maintained a general interest since then.

Regarding support for terrorism against civilian targets, context is important: if 10% of incoming migrants support violence against civilians, then they will fit in with the US, where a Gallup poll found that 49% of Americans believe that violence against civilians is sometimes justified (http://www.gallup.com/poll/157067/views-violence.aspx). This is not trying to draw equivalence – it’s merely suggesting that your point may not be as strong as you believe.

I agree that other Muslim-majority countries, particularly the richer ones, have an obligation to help. In that context it’s worth remembering that the vast majority of Syrian refugees already are – and will continue to be – hosted mainly by Muslim-majority countries, specifically Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. Millions of Afghan refugees were hosted for decades by Pakistan and Iran, the latter with extremely limited support from outside.

I haven’t seen anybody, Left or Right, who’s claimed that “only the West must take them”; maybe they exist. Personally I think that it would be better for the refugees if they can remain close to their homes – but that’s not my decision to make. Muslim-majority countries have an obligation to host, but that obligation is on exactly the same basis as ours, and has nothing to do with religious affinity; rather it concerns legal obligations and common humanity.

Finally, I’m not sure why you become so impatient when I raise these questions. As Thales said, “Time is the wisest of all things that are; for it brings everything to light,” and I hope that you grant these discussions the necessary time.

Thales also said: “A multitude of words is no proof of a prudent mind.”

That one was lost on you.

You say you aren’t drawing equivalence between the stats, but then try to use it in your argument as if they are. You are disingenuous. But I expect no less from an SJW.

Islam is responsible for the lion’s share of terrorism, intended primarily against civilian targets, today. Why are you asking us to import more Muslims into our countries? Do you like terrorism? Do you desire more of it?

merkur
on September 5, 2015 at 7:59 pm

Obviously I’ve hit a nerve. You know nothing about me, obviously, but perhaps pause to consider that my family might also have lost much because of ethnic-religious violence. So no, I don’t desire more terrorism; but since I don’t believe that all Muslims are terrorists, I don’t think that hosting refugees automatically leads to more terrorism. I’m not blind to the fact that there will be a substantial impact on the social and economic situation in hosting countries, but that’s why hosting needs to be one tactic in a wider strategy for dealing with the regional crisis.

p.s. I was accurate when I said that I wasn’t trying to draw equivalence. You said that “you are adding tens of thousands who support terrorism to your country” and I was merely pointing out that – by the evidence you cited, the Pew poll – there are already proportionately more who support terrorism already living in that country.

Your comment about “hitting a nerve” marks you. You wish to hit nerves, I.e. make emotional arguments. Do you really think a double digit percentage of Americans support terrorism? You are a fool if you do. You try to weasel language to support that assertion, but it doesn’t pass the sniff test.

You are drawing false equivalence, then claiming you are not. This means you are a liar.

No, I don’t. When I said I’d hit a nerve, I didn’t mean it in a triumphal way; I meant it in an apologetic way, because I know this relates to the pain you feel regarding your family history. However none of my arguments are emotional, as you can see – although it is ironic that you’re accusing me of that, given the nakedly emotional content of your original post!

“Do you really think a double digit percentage of Americans support terrorism?… You are drawing false equivalence, then claiming you are not.”

What I meant by equivalence in my original comment was moral equivalence – sorry for not making that clear. However I’m puzzled by your comment here. You offered a vague reference to a Pew study, which luckily I was familiar with. I gave you a specific link to a Gallup poll that found that a double digit percentage of Americans thought that violence against civilians is sometimes justified. Given that’s the same wording as the Pew study that you referenced, if there is any equivalence, why do you believe that it’s false?

Excuse the accidental deletion of this comment. I tried to reply to yours, but wound up overwriting it instead. Had to change some WordPress settings (never had a comment thread go this deep with this theme before). Your original comment should be restored now. In any event, here is my reply:

“However none of my arguments are emotional, as you can see”

Yes, they are. Hitting nerves is an admission of making an emotional argument.

“…although it is ironic that you’re accusing me of that, given the nakedly emotional content of your original post!”

The difference is, I never claimed it wasn’t. You lied. I told the truth. After the original post, you engaged me in a dialectical debate, and I responded likewise. You then switched to emotional content when your position was suitably destroyed. Rhetoric was your last bastion. You’re still stuck in it, and my patience for rooting you out of it is minimal. It is, as they say, your own problem.

“What I meant by equivalence in my original comment was moral equivalence – sorry for not making that clear. However I’m puzzled by your comment here. You offered a vague reference to a Pew study, which luckily I was familiar with.”

If you are familiar with it, why would it be vague? The study was exactly as I described it. If you were unfamiliar with it, you could have asked me for a link. There is no moral equivalence between the two. Americans do not support terrorist bombings (especially suicide bombings) against civilian targets, at least not anywhere near the extent to which the Muslim world supports these things.

So, you are either an idiot, which I do not consider likely, or you are liar, which given your past posts regarding SocJus seems much more likely. SJWs always lie, as Vox’s book tells us. You are proving him correct.

The Kid
on September 7, 2015 at 3:51 am

Merkur, please go enlist. The various groups opposed to IS are accepting western recruits, especially in Kurdistan.

You give me the distinct impression of wishing to be generous with other peoples’ blood and money. There are many people who enjoy being generous, as long as they are taking from others to donate to their causes.

Really? Aren’t you the one who thought more needed to be done to stop the genocide? Go and fight, then. Or go and lead non-violent protests, but for God’s sake don’t ask others to do what you will not.

And, I assume those refugees you are housing receive no government assistance and were legally admitted to the country? Because otherwise you are indeed being generous with other people’s assets, including money.

ISIS is an existential threat to me because my fiqh is Maliki. The Wahhabist/Salafist Daesh consider other Muslims, including we Orthodox Sunni, as heretics who deserve nothing other than death or enslavement and rape. Any civilized Muslim fears the takfiris, and everyone else should. I suggest you read up on the Najdi conquest of the Arabian peninsula if you have any questions as to why anyone in their right mind – Muslim or not – considers them not only an existential threat, but an immediate physical threat.

Many American masajid have been theologically “bought” with Saudi money. Everyone knows which ones the House of Saud funds because the Ali, Asad, Pickthall and Turkish Committee renditions of the Quran disappear from the bookstore, and are replaced by the Saudi official version which has all sorts of parenthetical interjections not to be found in the original Arabic.

Not to mention that all books that do not have the imprimatur off Wahhabi religious officials vanish from the bookstore and the library.

And then there is the sudden discovery that a woman’s voice is part of her nudity, and suddenly women are not on boards or any place else as it somehow became “against Islam” for a woman to speak in the presence of a non-mahram – which would have come as a shock to the Caliph ‘Umar who was corrected in a public gathering when he made an error regarding the size of the mahr (money or gifts given by the groom to the bride.)

Saudi will not help the refugees because Saudi will take no risk at all of accidentally admitting Daesh terrorists. Daesh managed to become even more extremist Wahhabis than the house of Saud itself.

The irony of all this is that many of the Saudi princes and that sort have supported Daesh.

I agree with everything you wrote. I only wish more people could see that US leftists use these situations to increase their own power – racism, poverty, environmentalism – they scream so loud about inequality while building giant mansions for themselves.

Thank you for your insights. All these refugees can be taken care of in neighboring countries, at a fraction of the cost, without endangering the economic and social achievements of the people in the wealthier Christian parts of the world. As for Muslims, we owe them nothing.

The refugees are being taken care of in neighbouring countries right now, but given state weakness and political instability in the region, it’s almost to prevent them from moving illegally towards the EU.

Yes – and of course one way to shame them into doing so would be if majority Christian countries started accepting more refugees. I’m not convinced that will work, though – Saudi Arabia doesn’t have much shame, unfortunately.

So, defeat militant Islam by shaming Islamic countries, by taking in all the people they clearly don’t want already. Your foreign policy genius astounds me, sir. In case you are too dense to figure it out, that was sarcasm.

merkur
on September 5, 2015 at 10:22 pm

As I said, I’m not convinced the plan will work – but I never claimed it was a plan to defeat militant Islam, only a way of shaming Saudi into hosting refugees.

It’s also worth remembering that the refugees themselves don’t want to go to Saudi Arabia – the culture is quite alien to most Syrians.

The Kid
on September 7, 2015 at 9:39 am

You assume they are capable of shame. If majority Christian countries accept more refugees, one can predict that the Muslim countries currently accepting refugees will forward them to the Christian countries.

The Kid
on September 7, 2015 at 3:53 am

No, they’re not. They are not being accepted by many of the neighboring countries. Where are the Turks? The Saudis? The other Gulf States that make such a big deal of being so religious and Islamic?

As I’ve pointed out, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon are hosting most of the refugees; and I’ve also agreed that the Gulf States, particularly Saudi Arabia, are a very poor example of an “Islamic” country when you compare them to the first three.

One fun fact: Saudi Arabia isn’t quite a “neighbouring” country – the distance from Damascus to Athens is shorter than the distance from Damascus to Riyadh! That’s not an excuse of course, but it might explain why Saudi doesn’t feel this as a pressing concern.

You’re being disingenuous. The distance between Damascus and Riyadh is far shorter than the distance between places where the refugees are being sent – for example, the distance between Damascus and Munich.

When people say we need to take them in, I respond, “As much as the Saudis do.”
How many mosques should we allow in any city? As many churches as the Saudis allow.
So far, none.
There is Islamic Nation Group, let them take care of their own. We should accept all the Christians still left.
See how well Arabia does with no Jews or Christians. Oh, right, we see it every day.

I’m sorry, what was the “dumb statement”? freedom14despitebarack said – When people say we need to take them in, I respond, “As much as the Saudis do.”

He was trying to make some kind of point about majority Muslim states taking more responsibility, but my point was that – there are a variety of majority Muslim states, and some of them are taking a lot of responsibility, so it seems quite a quixotic argument.

Like they made Palestinians feel at home, in refugee camps, for 70 years. Yeah, Arab hospitality. Hosted Bosnian Serb family that spent 7 years in German refugee camp. They didn’t carry a key to their house around their neck, they got on with their lives. It’s almost as if Arabs hate on Arabs from different tribes, but that can’t be true! Arab UNITY!
Hate to have them live among us infidels, that’s all. Whole lot of empty land for them in Muslim lands. Take care of your own. A very old, old saying.

Why should Europe or America or Canada take ANY of them? What good accrues to us? If you think they will change, you haven’t been paying attention. Are you against self interest? Having Muslims come into our sick decadent Western society seems like punishment more than generosity.

Well, there’s a religious argument: that it’s an act of simple charity that fits with the imperatives clearly laid down by Jesus Christ, but I realise you might not be Christian, so there’s also a moral argument: that the vast majority of these refugees are innocent civilians caught in the crossfire of a conflict that our governments have (at worst) exacerbated and (at best) neglected to address.

There’s also a legal argument: there is an obligation to protected and host refugees under international law, if they reach your country and apply for asylum (not all these migrants pass the requirements, although I think all from Syria do). This gets a little more complicated, obviously.

That’s shifting the goalposts quite a bit, isn’t it? Your original argument was that OIC countries weren’t pulling their weight. When it was pointed out that the three largest hosting countries are all OIC members, rather than praising them for living up to their responsibilities, you attack them for completely unrelated reasons.

Thank you, Sir.
You are absolutely correct. I can absolutely second what you said.
Like your family, one part of mine survived and escaped another genocide happening at the same time on Turkish soil.. The genocide of the Greeks. Like you, I have heared from my grandmother and my mother about the unspeakable horrors and about one righteous family who hid and saved my grandmother and her family.
Knowing the violent history of islam, it is a stupidity of the highest order.to let Muslims immigrate into any non-muslim country on a greater scale.
I live in Euriope and some countries here have already massive problems with the muslim population. Im not even talking about the financial aspects but other even more troubling aspects.
Terrorist attacks like the one in the French train show time and again that Europe is not able to keep track of and deal effectively with islamic terrorists.But it’s not just those terrorist attacks that are troubling. There are two undeniable facts that make muslim immagration into western countries an act of suicide.for the host countries.
1. There is not a muslim country in the world where muslims and non-muslims enjoy the same rights.
2. Muslims refuse to integrate everywhere they go.

When faced with fact #1 some claim that eventially those immigrants will adapt to their host countries and that they will become good citizens who respect the host’s culture and respect and uphold the law of the land. That’s not happening as fact #2 shows.
And that’s why we can expect that non-muslims in a country that allows muslims to become a significant minority or even the majority will share the fate of other non-muslims living today in muslim countries.or in countries with a high perentage of muslims.
Not only have non-muslims less rights than muslims in muslim countries but, inevitably, as the mulsim population grows, the violence against non-muslims grows as well.

I think that Muslims will assimilate to the West as well as all of those illegal aliens from south of the border, Russia, and so on have assimilated. Not at all. They bring their ultra violent cultures with them.

merkur said:
“Well, there’s a religious argument: that it’s an act of simple charity that fits with the imperatives clearly laid down by Jesus Christ, but I realise you might not be Christian, so there’s also a moral argument: that the vast majority of these refugees are innocent civilians caught in the crossfire of a conflict that our governments have (at worst) exacerbated and (at best) neglected to address.”

The problem with your argument is that it looks only at one side of the coin.
As far as I’m aware the bible and Jesus say: “Love thy neighbour AS thyself.”.
Nowhere is it written: “Love your neighbour MORE THAN thyself.”
Neither is it written: “Love your neighbour A more than your neighbour B.”
If I’m wrong, please tell me where in the bible I can find those passages.
Here is a thought experiment.
Let’s assume that you live in a big, big house and that you have plenty of money.
In your big house lives your family and some neigbours you allow to live permanently because they needed refuge.
There are 100 refugees that ask you to take them into your house. You know that most of them are decent people but you know also that one of them is a murderer. You have no way of telling who he is. Though you could take them into your house you have not enough money to have guards to look after them all or to have all of your family and your old neighbours protected. So, it is pretty certain that one of your neighbors already living in your house would get killed or one of your family members would get killed.
To let those 100 refugees in would require that you love them more than your old neighbours and even more than your family.
To let them in would be immoral because not only would you love them more than your family but you would fail in your duty to protect your family. Assuming that you love your family, it is your moral duty to protect it.
Simple question: Given the above scenario, would you let those 100 refugees live permanently in your house?

merkur said:
“There’s also a legal argument: there is an obligation to protected and host refugees under international law, if they reach your country and apply for asylum (not all these migrants pass the requirements, although I think all from Syria do). This gets a little more complicated, obviously.”

NOT TRUE.
No country has an obligation to host refugees. The law says only that no country is allowed to send refugees back to the place they were fleeing from. That is, if the refugees fulfil certain criteria like politcal/religious persecution etc.
BIG DIFFERENCE.

The obligation exists under Article 33 of the 1951 Refugee Convention not to return a refugee to a country of territory where he/she would be at risk of persecution:

“No Contracting State shall expel or return (“refouler”) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.”

This is known as the principle of non-refoulement, which is considered part of customary international law and therefore binding on all states. The principle is also incorporated in several international human rights treaties, for example the 1984 Convention against Torture, which prohibits the forcible removal of persons to a country where there is a real risk of torture.
—————————————

So, if Syrians are fleeing to Turkey, Turkey is not allowed to send them back to Syria. If, however, Turkey lets the refugees pass into Europe, Europe is not obliged to host those refugees but it has the right to send them back to Turkey or to prevent them from entering Europe in the first place.

The other, more important question is: How strictly should this law be applied?
Should a country be obliged to obey that law under any and all circumstances or are there limits to the application of this law?
Let’s see what can happen if we apply the law strictly.
We have two countries A and B sharing the same border.
Country A has a population of 1 million. Country B has a population of 100 million.
Civil war, slaughter and genocide breaks out in country B.
50 million people are fleeing to country A.
If the law were to be applied strictly, country A would have to take those 50 million refugees in, no matter what.
Common sense and the right of selfpreservation tell us that this law can not be applied strictly but that countries can be only obliged to take as many refugees as they can absorb.
How many refugees a country can absorb is not only determined by how much money it can spend to shelter the refugees.
It is also determined by the extend to which the host country can integrate the refugees into its own society.
Furthermore, the obligations of the international refugee law are not absolute and collide with other even more important obligations of the host countries. For the goverments of the host countries the first and foremost obligation is to protect their own citizens. Since an increase in muslim immigration undoubtedly leads to an increase in violence and terrorism, the European goverments have not only the right but the duty to deny muslim immigrants and refugees.
Viewed from this point Europe or any Western country is obliged to take exactly ZERO muslim refugees in.
If, however, one still wants to demand the strict application of the refugee law, one should take note that almost all of those refugees come to Europe through transit countries like Turkey, Egypt, Jordan etc.
In that case the number of refugees that Europe cannot legally sent back would still be almost zero, perhaps a few thousands but certainly not 800,000.
The same reasoning would apply to the US.
Case closed.

Host countries’ responsibilities go some way beyond non-refoulement. Chapters II through V of the 1951 Convention lay out the range of legal responsibilities of contracting states towards refugees. The Convention does not state that refugee must apply for asylum in any specific country, and the principle of first country of asylum developed informally. It also states that countries “shall not expel a refugee lawfully in their territory save on grounds of national security or public order.” (Article 32)

The Convention also states that “The Contracting States shall apply the provisions of this Convention to refugees without discrimination as to race, religion or country of origin” (Article 3) thus creating a legal obstacle to the kind of proposals made here regarding which refugees to host. The case of each asylum seeker needs to be assessed and a decision made on that basis: so if an asylum seeker arrives from (say) Libya, you do not have the right to prevent them from entering, nor do you have the right to send them back to Libya. This particularly applies to countries where their safety cannot be guaranteed, such as Libya; but this may also include (for example) Turkey.

“Common sense and the right of selfpreservation tell us that this law can not be applied strictly but that countries can be only obliged to take as many refugees as they can absorb.”

That’s absolutely right, and that’s the argument for assisting Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon by transferring refugee populations from their territory to a safe third country. We can agree that hosting refugees has social as well as economic impact, but that’s not part of refugee law – perhaps it should be, but I can’t begin to imagine how you would measure that impact in any meaningful way to make a decision based on it. You argue that “an increase in muslim immigration undoubtedly leads to an increase in violence and terrorism” – can you provide some evidence for that?

“You argue that “an increase in muslim immigration undoubtedly leads to an increase in violence and terrorism” – can you provide some evidence for that?”
Your kidding, right?
All countries that have let muslims emigrate into them, have had an increase of violence, brought in by the followers of islime.
Simple research is all it takes to know that.

I searched on the web, but I couldn’t find any research that demonstrated a causal link between muslim immigration and domestic terrorism. I’m sure you’re right and such research exists! Please, if you can help me with some links, I would appreciate it.

Really? because I simply googled “muslim rape gangs” and dozens of links came up.
Me thinks you are dishonest.

merkur
on September 7, 2015 at 7:17 am

Your original assertion was that “an increase in muslim immigration undoubtedly leads to an increase in violence and terrorism”. I’ll take it as implicit that you’re dropping the assertion that “an increase in muslim immigration undoubtedly leads to an increase in… terrorism.” That leaves us with an increase in violence – and I wish you’d specified sexual violence, because then I could have searched for that.

A web search for “muslim rape gangs” yields about 3,770,000 results, but I’m not sure how that proves your assertion that an increase in muslim immigration leads to an increase in violence. The content of those articles certainly tries to make that case, but none of the articles I read just now offers any kind of causal argument – it’s just stated as a matter of faith based on less than a handful of cases.

Hmmm … an increase of muslim rape gangs is not caused by an increase of muslim immigration?
Realy? That is your argument?

merkur
on September 6, 2015 at 11:01 pm

“If I’m wrong, please tell me where in the bible I can find those passages.”

Happy to help you out, brother! Luke 21:1-4 makes it clear that God prizes those who give beyond their means, while Luke 12:33 actually tells you to sell your possessions in order to give. 1 John 3:17 says: ” But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?”

The context in which Jesus talked about loving each other is also quite instructive. John 13:34-35: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Since Jesus loved us so much that he died for us, he is instructing us to love each other equally, i.e. to the extent that we would lay down our own lives for our fellow humans.

So, merker, how many refugees will you be hosting, then? With your rhetoric, I expect that your home should be filled to capacity with them, and you should spend all of your earnings on food and supplies for them.

Only three? Why not 100? Certainly you have possessions you could sell, more jobs you could take, more money you could give, right?

gray man
on September 7, 2015 at 8:29 am

Luke 21:1-4, and Luke 12:33.
Nope. Christ does not expect you to give beyond your means, but give all you can give. And you get to decide the amount. The point is to give freely, and gladly.
2 Corinthians 9:7
John 13:34-35
Loving someone does not necessarily mean to just give them something without them earning it.
2 Thessalonians 3:10

Merkur, Is this a bad joke? My statements couldn’t be any clearer.
I can only imagine the following reasons why you came up with a completely irrelevant response that completely failed to address my point.

1. You’re stupid.
2. You’re not paying attention.
3. You’re not able to answer my challenge but you are so desperate to make your case anyway that you come up with completely irrelevant verses that you need to interpret the way you like in order to make your point.

As for me, I believe it’s #3, possibly #2.

Here, again, are my statements:

As far as I’m aware the bible and Jesus say: “Love thy neighbour AS thyself.”.
Nowhere is it written: “Love your neighbour MORE THAN thyself.”
Neither is it written: “Love your neighbour A more than your neighbour B.”
If I’m wrong, please tell me where in the bible I can find those passages.

So you couldn’t find the following statements in the bible:
“Love your neighbour MORE THAN thyself.”
“Love your neighbour A more than your neighbour B.”

Try again. Good luck

Instead you come with your own personal interpretation of the bible.

“Happy to help you out, brother! Luke 21:1-4 makes it clear that God prizes those who give beyond their means,”.

Nope, the widow’s offering TO GOD is not a general command to give beyond your means to your neighbour.
The widow gave HER money and probably had no kids. You’re not telling me that Jesus would have commended a mother giving all her money and leaving her kids hungry?

“while Luke 12:33 actually tells you to sell your possessions in order to give.”

Yep, the keyword here is YOUR possesions.

“1 John 3:17 says: ” But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?

Yep, if anyone HAS the goods.

“The context in which Jesus talked about loving each other is also quite instructive. John 13:34-35: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Since Jesus loved us so much that he died for us, he is instructing us to love each other equally, i.e. to the extent that we would lay down our own lives for our fellow humans.”

Yep, context is everything und you butchered it right here.
When Jesus spoke these words he was not yet crucified. So, when he said “just as I have loved you” he meant just as He had loved them in the past. we should love each other equally? So, you’re proving my point that we should not love our neighbour more than ourselves. Thanks.

Like many “good” leftists you butcher the scriptures to suit your ideology.
Even if you were correct in your interpretation you miss one undeniable fact.
Jesus asks to give from YOUR money. Jesus asks to give YOUR live.
He does not ask you to give your neighbour’s money. He does not asks you to give your neighbour’s life in order to do good.
Nowhere in the bible is it commanded that you take money from your neighbour to give it to someone else who is in need because that would violate the commandmend “Thou shall not steal”.
Newsflash: In the real world there are these things called states.
States which take refugees have to spend money in order to house them and to provide for them.
Newsflash: The money has to come from somewhere.
There is this thing called tax which is nothing but a legalized form of stealing.
You have to pay your tax whether you want it or not. Most states are absolutely ruthless when it comes to collecting taxes. You are threatened with jail and other forms of force,
Newsflash: Charity at gunpoint is no charity at all.
Doing charity at your neighbour’s cost is nothing but despicable theft.
Endangering not only your life but you’re neighbour’s life because you want to good to someone else is not love and charity towards you neighbour.

This is the verse that best describes leftists and their idea of redistribution and forced charity.
John 12:3

“Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, which should betray him, Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein. Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.”

Bottom line: You didn’t answer my statements. The fact that the verses you mentioned require your own very liberal interpretaion to make them mean what you want, proves my point.
I don’t believe that God needs your help to explain to us what He wanted to say. When He wanted to press the point, He did so. When Jesus spoke in parables He did it in such a masterful way that He made His point cristal clear.

Again, here’s what I said. Read slowly and carefully.
As far as I’m aware the bible and Jesus say: “Love thy neighbour AS thyself.”.
Nowhere is it written: “Love your neighbour MORE THAN thyself.”
Neither is it written: “Love your neighbour A more than your neighbour B.”
If I’m wrong, please tell me where in the bible I can find those passages.

So, if you can’t find those passages, spare me your (faulty) interpretations because they mean nothing.

BTW, you failed to answer my simple question.

Here’s another very simple question: Would you take an ebola-infected homeless person into your house? if not, why not?

There are times when idealism and idiocy are impossible to distinguish. There is no such thing; one either goes in at full strength and intends on winning, or one fights a losing war of attrition, as seen in Vietnam and elsewhere.

In the 6th C BCE Sun Tzu wrote a masterwork, The Art of War. This simple principal of either fighting a war or staying home was known at the time.

Unfortunately, the US government forgot it between Eisenhower and Kennedy.

My impression of the posts and some of the commentary:
A bit too much collective-speak going on for my taste. The job is to separate the evil people from the good, not one religion from another. Fortunately that is fairly easy to do: just watch their behavior.

A bit too much fear for my taste. In America at least, the Muslims are irrelevant. The government is the real enemy – often the same entity that the Muslim-phobes turn to to “fix” problems for you. Those in government do not give a rat’s ass about you, other than to maintain the slaves in decent health for their plantation.

There was a lot of back and forth about violence/nonviolent resistance. Actually the two are not always mutually incompatible. Keep in mind Martin Luther King depended on The Deacons for personal protection. Nonviolent resistance is almost always preferable – as long as it can be made to work. And even violent resistance depends on getting support from the nonviolent public, just as nonviolent resistance does.

Paul, I speak from the cold experience of being a Muslim for well over a decade. I no longer attend jumaa because I do not like the attacks on the US morality, economy, government, freedom of speech emanating from the minbar. I can find only one or two Sunni masajid within ten miles of my home in the SF Bay Area that have not accepted the “generous funding” from Saudi, and wound up preaching Wahhabi/Salafi/Deobandi literalism.

I have spent too much of my time being instructed that American law may be disregarded when convenient as it is “manmade” and not divine law, which Sharia – based on many human opinions – is alleged to be. I have heard CAIR representatives come in and request donations and whip up fear by telling overt lies. Although many at the masjid I used to attend were horrified by 9/11, there were many who did not seem to be upset by the situation. The most interesting moment for me was sitting in the masjid before jumaa and speaking with a South Asian woman who had been afraid her brother had tied in the building – and not ten feet away another woman was exultant over the attack.

To hear some of the imams tell it, the West is essentially corrupt, evil, and horrible – which makes one wonder why so many of them moved here. And some of the American born imams are even worse.

I’m not sure you can tell the bad from the good because they attend the same masajid, and with the heavy Saudi Wahhabi influence, radicalization seems inevitable.

To understand this phenomenon, read about the Wahhabi conquest of the Arabian Peninsula, and then read “The Broken Chain” ([Aftab Ahmad Malik) for a clear view of the battle within and without Islam.

It is idealism to think one can separate the good and the bad, as “warfare is deception” in Islam.

There is no question that the government has become an enemy of the American people. But that does not mean that mass Islamic immigration isn’t a threat, also.

TheKid’s argument about warfare as deception is an apt one. Islam will cloak itself in peaceful overtones until it has achieved sufficient strength to overthrow by force of arms.

This isn’t a case of all Muslims being bad — obviously that’s not the case. My own family’s survival is a testament to the fact that good and righteous Muslims exist. The problem is that the bad Muslims are exceptionally good at cloaking themselves as the good ones. They will use good Muslims as cover in order to insert themselves into positions of power.

The entire terrorist way of thinking is based on using the civilian population as a shield so that the enemy does not engage you. Militant Islam is expert in the use of this weapon. They will not hesitate to endanger their own civilians, and use them as cover for invasion.

So you simply cannot just blithely accept hundreds of thousands of them into your country, even if the percentage of militants is relatively small.

Note how Saudi Arabia is refusing to take in refugees from Syria, while simultaneously funding mosques in Germany. They are *deliberately* trying to wage war, using the refugee crisis as a cover.

Aslomg as there are “good” muslims there is a sea for the “bad” muslims to swim in. I suggest you actual read the responsibilities of a “good” muslim as set forth in the Quran and the Hadiths. A muslims primary responsibility is to respect the five pillars and to spread islam throughout the non-muslim word, whether by war or stealth. I do wish “good” muslims like the kid would stop deluding themselves. Mohammed is the final word and violence is an inherent part of islam.

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Dystopic

I'm a DJ, developer, amateur historian, would-be pundit, and general pain in the ass. I still cannot decide on the wisdom of the Oxford Comma. These are my observations on a civilization in decline, a political system on the verge of collapse, and a people asleep at the wheel as the car turns toward the jersey barrier.